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Response to Pennsylvania’s plan to expand hemp production has been lower than state officials anticipated. The state set an ambitious goal for increasing hemp production this year by offering more licenses and increasing the acreage farmers can use to develop hemp from 5 acres to 100 acres. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said when he announced […]

Pennsylvania misses hemp target, but expansion still coming is a post from: Marijuana Business Daily: Financial, Legal & Cannabusiness news for cannabis entrepreneurs

A prominent Democratic U.S. senator is slamming pharmaceutical companies for opposing marijuana legalization.

"To them it's competition for chronic pain, and that's outrageous because we don't have the crisis in people who take marijuana for chronic pain having overdose issues," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York said. "It's not the same thing. It's not as highly addictive as opioids are."

"On the federal level, we really need to say it is a legal drug you can access if you need it," she said.

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Tom Angell ~ Forbes.com ~ 

Medical marijuana is one step closer to being legal in Utah.

On Wednesday, two bills were up for debate at the State Capitol. The setting was a Senate Committee hearing.

Two bills had already passed through the House and were up before the committee. House Bill 195 came up for discussion and vote first.

It would allow those who are terminally ill -- those with six months to live -- to use medical marijuana.

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A bill that would reduce the penalty for marijuana possession in Alabama is scheduled for consideration on Wednesday by both the House and Senate judiciary committees.

Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, and Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, are the bill sponsors.

Todd has tried with similar bills for several years to reduce the penalties for marijuana possession. She believes opposition has faded and is optimistic the bill will pass.

"I haven't talked to one person who is against it," Todd said.

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Could Massachusetts become the first U.S. state where adults can gather and use legal recreational marijuana at so-called “cannabis cafes?”

The Cannabis Control Commission, the five-member panel set up to regulate the state’s marijuana industry, is expected to decide later this month whether to approve draft regulations that would allow for the licensing of social consumption establishments.

The idea has received strong opposition from Republican Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration and from law enforcement officials who warn of public safety and public health risks if such facilities were to open.

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Bob Salsberg ~ Associated Press ~ 

Christine Gordon is battling the Kansas Legislature for access to medical marijuana for her 6-year-old daughter, Autumn, who has a form of epilepsy that leaves her with persistent seizures that have not responded to traditional medicines.

Lenexa resident Christine Gordon can’t stop her daughter’s seizures with any legal product. She’s tried.

Gordon’s daughter, Autumn, is 6 now, but is developmentally like a 2-year-old because of the seizures that started shortly after she was born.

Autumn has a type of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome that so far has resisted all conventional medical treatments. Gordon wants Autumn to be able to try an oil derived from cannabis that, in states where it’s legal, has helped some kids have fewer seizures.

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Support for marijuana legalization is quickly becoming a mainstream consensus position in the Democratic Party.

Two of the party's leading potential 2020 presidential candidates joined together this week in support of far-reaching legislation that would end the federal prohibition of cannabis and encourage states to legalize the drug.

“Legalizing marijuana isn’t a matter of if, it’s a matter of when," Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) said about the legislation, the Marijuana Justice Act, which he introduced last August.

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Tom Angell ~ Forbes.com ~ 

If you're only familiar with his travel show, "Rick Steves' Europe," you might not guess that the mild-mannered PBS personality is one of America's most prominent advocates for marijuana legalization.

Indeed, the affable TV host and guidebook author has made legal weed a personal crusade, personally donating hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money to legalization efforts across the country, including in his home state of Washington.

But his push for legalization in the U.S. isn't rooted in a particular personal affinity for kind bud.

Rather, his stance on marijuana stems from his extensive travels overseas and the "pragmatic harm reduction" approach that many European countries take towards the drug. 

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The lawsuit claims the government’s decision to classify marijuana as dangerous is irrational, unconstitutional and motivated by politics, not hard science.

Army veteran Jose Belen says the horrors of the Iraq War left him with post-traumatic stress disorder, and the drug that helped him cope best with the symptoms was one his Veterans Affairs doctors could not legally prescribe: marijuana.

“Once I did use cannabis, immediately I felt the relief,” said Belen, who is now working with other medical marijuana users to mount a long-shot court challenge to federal laws criminalizing the drug.

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Karen Matthews ~ Associated Press ~ 

Congressman Matt Gaetz held two roundtables discussions on Monday with veterans and faith-based community leaders on medical marijuana research.

In Florida, marijuana is a schedule I drug, the same classification as heroin and LSD, but House Bill 2020 (H.R. 2020) would reschedule marijuana to a schedule III drug, the same as steroids.

Congressman Gaetz met with dozens of veterans across the panhandle at the University of West Florida.

Many of the veterans who were there say they would rather use medical marijuana legally than to take the chance of overdosing on prescribed pain pills.

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CSR can boost the cannabis sector’s image and bottom line, industry leaders said during a keynote panel at the National Cannabis Industry Association’s Seed to Sale Show in Denver.

The cannabis industry is in a unique position to reshape and redefine Corporate Social Responsibility by creating a better version of so-called “corporate citizenship”– and making it the new standard in a rapidly growing sector.

Industry leaders examined how CSR, a corporation’s efforts to assess and take responsibility for its impacts on the environment and society, can boost the cannabis sector’s image and bottom line Thursday during a keynote panel at the National Cannabis Industry Association‘s Seed to Sale Show in Denver.

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Bruce Kennedy ~ TheCannabist.co ~ 

The Great Lakes State has the second-largest medical marijuana patient base in the country, trailing only gigantic California.

A shift in Michigan's medical marijuana market is no small event.

Major legal weed markets have opened up on the West Coast — California, Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Alaska — and New England, with Maine, Massachusetts and Washington D.C.

But the Midwest remains largely untapped. Michigan's new licensing and seed-to-sale tracking system for medical marijuana opened for applications in December, and observers expect to see a ballot question on recreational marijuana in Michigan in November. 

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"We see cannabis not as a gateway drug. We see it as an exit path off opiates."

Ryan Miller describes the year after his leg amputation as the best year of his life. He worked out. He traveled. He tanned. He was done with opioids.

After an explosively formed projectile destroyed his leg and damaged his stomach in Iraq, Miller had been caught in a vicious cycle of surgery and prescribed painkillers.

The wounded Army infantry captain would have a surgery every few months, broken up by unsuccessful physical therapy. 

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State regulators awarded a $1 million, three-year contract this week to a New Jersey-based company to operate a toll-free help line for patients, caregivers and doctors accessing Ohio's new medical marijuana program. 

Direct Success Inc.'s Ohio subsidiary Extra Step Assurance will operate the help line from a call center in Bellefontaine. The call center opened in February 2017 and has since been operating a national toll-free medical marijuana help line.

Direct Success CEO Cheryl McDaniel said the center offers fact-based information but does not give medical or legal advice. McDaniel said the company has pharmacists on call 24/7 to answer questions about drug interactions.

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Jackie Borchardt ~ Cleveland.com ~ 

The legal cannabis industry is posting some eye-popping job-growth numbers.

The total number of job postings for the cannabis industry increased by 445% in 2017, as a host of states — including Nevada and Massachusetts — legalized the plant for adult consumption.

That's up from just 18% growth in 2016, according to a recent study from ZipRecruiter, a job-search website.

Nine states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis, though it's considered an illegal, Schedule I drug at the federal level.

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Legalization advocates in 420-unfriendly states like Kansas and Oklahoma have many hurdles to overcome, but they want the outside world to know they haven’t given up the fight.

2018 could be another historic year for the cannabis legalization movement in the United States.

Nine states have implemented recreational, adult-use legalization, and at least 29 states and the District of Columbia boast some form of a legal medical marijuana program — with several more states expected to vote on legalization later this year.

But there are some parts of the country where the prospect of legalization still seems quite distant, if not highly improbable, due to a combination of regional politics and local cultural values.

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